Conflict — perhaps like no other happening — illuminates our shared vulnerability to hurt and harm of unimaginable form and depth. The legal protection of rights was born of such suffered injustice. To an extent then, it may be viewed as juristic response to our embodied vulnerability. Therein lies one of the enduring paradoxes of international human rights law; the most vulnerable frequently have the least access to justice.

Consider the hundreds of thousands of besieged in Syria: over a thousand days since the conflict began rights violations cascade; violations of the rights to life, freedom from hunger and of movement layer upon violations of the rights transformers beneath — the rights to legal remedies, take part in public affairs, freedom of expression and association, amongst others. And, the sole possibility of redress is conditional on one of the most precarious of all political processes — decision-making towards peace agreements.

What are, these, if not a call to action? Why, then, are children — 43 per cent population —invisible within the peace agreements to date? There is no reference to children within Geneva Communiqué I and just one reference within the Communiqué of the London 11.

The possibility of peace in Syria may seem more like an international force (pun intended) than a beacon of hope. History though tells us to ‘believe…’.* The form of the conflict’s resolution is simply unimagined — as yet. Dig deeper though and history also tells us another story: the transformation of conflict is likely to be partial — children, particularly, are likely to be invisible within decision-making towards peace agreements. To date, the Syrian peace process substantiates this: there is no reference to children — 43% of the population — within Geneva Communiqué I and just one reference within the Communiqué of the London 11.

As the Syrian conflict unfolds across our multiple screens, the possibility of peace is both deeply held and unimaginable: a barely spoken force in the hearts of those made vulnerable; yet as unimaginable as those same harms committed by both sides. Perhaps the greatest challenge is of hope: believing ‘a further shore /Is reachable from here’.*

There is another challenge though: interconnected, but unlike the transformation of conflict to peace, as yet unrealised (or only partially) by history. The challenge of asking the child question: ensuring children’s rights ‘in’ and ‘through’ the process. History may tell us to ‘believe…’ but it also tells us the transformation is often partial — that children particularly are likely to be invisible within decision-making towards peace agreements.